this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2025
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Months after he's helped gut NASA's budget, Musk is to divert $2 billion from SpaceX to his Grok AI. (futurology.today)
submitted 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) by Lugh@futurology.today to c/futurology@futurology.today
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Quite apart from the blatant corruption, if SpaceX's biggest problem is that its rockets keep exploding, how is an AI that you have deliberately designed to give wrong answers supposed to fix things?

Thanks to gutting NASA and science budgets, space is another area where the US will soon cede the top spot to China. They have fully developed plans for a lunar base, deep space exploration, and will likely be the next to have humans on the Moon.

BTW - to anyone who tries to argue this isn't outright corruption, via diverting and siphoning taxpayers money, I have NFTs and memecoins for a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to interest you in.

SpaceX to invest $2 billion in Musk's xAI startup, WSJ reports

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[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 15 points 19 hours ago (3 children)

SpaceX is a private company, once it has been paid money that money is SpaceX's and is not taxpayer money any more. It's been spent. If the government hired a contractor to build a road, paid them to do so, and then the contractor took the money they'd been paid and invested it in some other company that the contractor owned, is that "corruption?"

Insert standard disclaimer here; Elon Musk is a terrible person and he's made a lot of terrible decisions, etc. and so forth. It's not going to stop me from being called a bootlicker, not sure why I bother inserting it.

[–] Almacca@aussie.zone 16 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

It is if you don't get the road you paid for.

[–] cole@lemdro.id 3 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

I think this claim might apply to Boeing, but SpaceX is very good at actually accomplishing things. There's a reason it's the world's #1 launch provider.

[–] Balex@lemmy.world 3 points 11 hours ago

And it's not even close. They put up more mass to orbit than every other entity combined.

[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 11 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

At that point the problem then isn't "SpaceX is investing in Grok AI", it's "SpaceX is violating its contract with NASA by not doing the work it's been paid to do."

That would indeed be a problem, if true. But it's a completely different problem.

[–] Almacca@aussie.zone 7 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

But it is corruption, especially if there are no consequences for it.

[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 3 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Quite possibly. Not all breaches of contract are a result of corruption, but some could be, sure.

But that's not my point. My point is that this isn't relevant to SpaceX investing its money in some other company. It's SpaceX money, not "government" money. They can waste it on stupid hitlerbots if they want to.

[–] Almacca@aussie.zone 0 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (1 children)

Is it though? I can't be arsed to look it up right now, but I can't imagine they're just being given all that taxpayer money without there being reams of paperwork dictating how they spend it. And if they are, then that's pretty corrupt as well.

Who am I kidding? Of course I can imagine that with the way things are being run over there these days.

[–] Hugin@lemmy.world 5 points 12 hours ago

Govt pays baker for a cake. Baker delivers cake. Baker can spend whatever's left on whatever stupid thing they want.

Space X has been supplying the launches contracted.

[–] moonlight@fedia.io 11 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Most roadwork contractors are spending most of the money doing job and paying employees, not funneling it to an neonazi AI.

SpaceX has taken a ton of money from taxpayers, (at the expense of NASA,) but hasn't been making good progress on the Artemis program, for example. Musk has also threatened to stop decommission the Dragon, which the US astronauts currently rely on.

In my opinion, Elon is a national security threat, and SpaceX should be nationalized and managed by NASA.

[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 6 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

Most roadwork contractors are spending most of the money doing job and paying employees, not funneling it to an neonazi AI.

Sure, and that's their choice. It's their money to invest, be they good investments or bad ones.

I'm not saying that funnelling money into xAI is a good idea. I happen to think it's a terrible idea, I would much rather that SpaceX not do that. But it's not corruption.

SpaceX has taken a ton of money from taxpayers, (at the expense of NASA,) but hasn't been making good progress on the Artemis program, for example.

It's got a milestone-based contract with NASA for Artemis. It's paid to achieve milestones. So if it hasn't been making good progress it isn't getting paid.

If you think the contract could be better written then maybe that's on NASA to do a better job negotiating. It has nothing to do with Grok one way or the other.

[–] Nakoichi@hexbear.net 4 points 16 hours ago

I would much rather Musk get incinerated by one of his rockets. We don't care about the finer points of the legality or whatever. I am a communist and Musk should be hanged for crimes against humanity.

[–] Benedict_Espinosa@lemmy.world 1 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (2 children)

It's their money to invest however they want only if it comes with no strings attached, no obligations to use it for a specific purpose. We don't know if this is the case, so there's no basis to argue that they can do whatever they want with it.

What is corruption? It's a form of dishonesty that is undertaken by a person or an organization that is entrusted in a position of authority. That certainly seems to be the case here - not by SpaceX and xAi as such, but by Musk and his involvement in the government.

And Musk has everything to do with Grok.

[–] Balex@lemmy.world 1 points 11 hours ago

So you're saying we don't have enough details to argue that they can spend the money however they want, but you can argue that they can't spend the money however they want?

[–] FaceDeer@fedia.io 3 points 15 hours ago

We don't know if this is the case

Right. That's exactly what I've been saying.

[–] NuraShiny@hexbear.net 5 points 17 hours ago

Depends if the results paid for by the government are delivered.

Did the US pay for a certain number of rockets to explode this fiscal quarter?

[–] NuraShiny@hexbear.net 9 points 17 hours ago

He's just allowed to cheat. Not even at the system. Rich people are allowed to do that already. No, he is allowed to cheat at the rich people system that says you gotta watch out for the other rich people's bottom line while you cheat and steal.

It's interesting, really, that the rich let him do it. I think he is simply too annoying for them to engage with, even on the level of 'we should hire IRL Agent 47 to get rid of this guy'.